Budget targets agriculture, hydropower, tourism

The government has increased development expenditure in the budget for Fiscal Year 2008/09 in a bid to achieve a 7 percent growth, Finance Minister Dr Babu Ram Bhattarai said Thursday. Bhattarai mentioned agriculture, hydropower and tourism as the major sectors to power the economy to achieve the targeted growth rate this year.

"We have set a target of 7 percent growth for this year. It will not be difficult to achieve double-digit growth if we commercialize agriculture, encourage massive investment in hydropower and develop tourism infrastructure," Bhattarai said at an interaction with representatives of different political parties on the budget to be presented Friday.

Bhattarai said attracting domestic and foreign investment, increasing investment in education, health and human resource and focusing on industrial development were also high on the agenda to accelerate economic growth.

"There will be a rise in non-development expenditure due to relief programs to be carried out for the people, but development expenditure will be much higher compared to last year's budget," Bhattarai said.

He added that the government was going to expand the tax net and include a larger number of traders instead of increasing the tax rate to collect more revenue.

He also said that the size of the budget has increased as it contains more relief and reconstruction programs for the benefit of people.

The programs in the budget were fixed keeping in view the ongoing peace process, the three-year interim plan and the constitution making process, he added.

"We have made an attempt in the budget to reduce disparity among people and lessen dependency," said Bhattarai.
Source: eKantipur